


Castaway, Captive, Companion

by Katzedecimal



Series: Beast of Berwyn [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Other, Where do I get these ideas?, giftfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:31:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baskerville has lost one of their experiments and wishes to hire Sherlock Holmes to locate it before the British government finds out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Game of Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalimyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalimyre/gifts).



> Originally written as a gift for Kalimyre, inspired by her decidedly cracky pornfic. Posted by request of Ihnasarima

"Perfect," Mycroft said softly. He tucked the bottles under his arm and left the wine cellar. He paused when he saw a shadow move in the kitchen, then recognised the shape and scowled, "How did you get in?"

"Key?" Sherlock said with a questioning eyebrow. 

"Most people ring the bell."

"I did. Four times."

"Or text."

"I did. I even phoned," Sherlock protested. Mycroft hesitated, remembering that he'd turned his phone off. He hadn't wanted to be disturbed. "Where's your staff?" 

"I gave them the day off," Mycroft raised his voice over the inquiring little chirrup that came from the other room, praying Sherlock hadn't heard that. _Great, she's trapped. Trust Sherlock to be standing right between her and safety._ "I don't always want people intruding into my affairs," he snapped, hoping Sherlock would take the hint. 

"I did phone. I've been trying to reach you. When you didn't answer, I came by to see if anything had happened to you." 

Ah good, the nettled tone was there. "Clearly nothing has," Mycroft put extra snap into his tone, hoping Sherlock would take offense and leave. 

It didn't work. Instead his brother stepped closer, fixing him with his 'investigating' look. "You're acting very strange."

"Says the man who keeps body parts in his refrigerator." 

Sherlock eyed the bottles under Mycroft's arm and sniffed the air, "You've brought up the better vintages and you're cooking, but if I were interrupting a date, you'd just tell me." He sniffed again, "And I thought you didn't like lemon polish?"

Mycroft tried another tactic, "What do you want, Sherlock?" Well it always worked for Sherlock... 

"Baskerville," Sherlock replied then paused, eyes narrowing slightly. Mycroft knew, just **knew** that his brother had picked up on the dread that shook Mycroft's body at that name. "Got an off-the-records call from a fellow connected there. One of their important experiments went missing six months ago. They...*" Sherlock broke off and appeared to be listening for a moment. "...They've been investigating on their own but keep coming up against a wall, but it's important enough they'd rather risk calling me than letting it slide. It's..*" He looked behind him but there was nothing there that he could see. "It's all very hush-hush, so even if I do find the thing, they'll probably try to silence me but just coming to me is showing a weakness in their house of..*" Sherlock looked around again, seeking the source of the very soft shuffling he was hearing. Then he noticed something, "Go? Not your usual game. Are you playing black? Your opponant is about to trounce you."

"...I know."

"Fresh aroma of lemon polish and the flooring here is still warm. You've sent your staff home and you'd tell me if I was interrupting a date, so who's beating you at Go that has you so discomfited?" Another of those inscrutable stares, the stare that had taken in every blush, every fidget, every note of tension in voice and body. "...What are you hiding?"

Mycroft rubbed his forehead and gave up, "Baskerville's experiment. I sent my staff home to give her the run of the house for a bit. She needs the exercise." He sighed and called, "You might as well come out. I don't think my brother will sell you out now."

Sherlock turned around in time to see a pair of pale peach appendages slink slowly around a corner. Then more of them. And more of them, sliding along the floor. Then the bulk of the thing undulated forward. "...Good thing I hadn't accepted the case," Sherlock said weakly. He watched, slightly dumbfounded, as the creature slithered over to where Mycroft stood and slunk behind him, as though his brother's moderate girth could protect such a creature as that. 

One pale tentacle slid over Mycroft's arm and into his hand and he patted it reassuringly. "I rescued her from Baskerville," he told his brother softly, "She's a castaway, though in truth she's been a captive most of her life."

"'She'?"

Mycroft nodded, "Her kind start life without gender and turn to male as part of adolescence, then at the midpoint of their lives, they turn to female. She was initially captured by slavers after she turned to male, and kidnapped from her homeworld. The slavers were taking a short-cut and misjudged the route. Their ship crashed in Wales in 1974."

Sherlock twitched an eyebrow, "Berwyn? She's lucky it didn't crash in Japan."

Mycroft's face suddenly warmed and he looked towards the creature, hoping to deflect Sherlock's attention from what he was certain must be a bright blush. "She was injured in the crash and taken into custody by an independent entity known as Torchwood. She was held under the site of Torchwood 1 for many years, then sold to Baskerville."

"You said she's now female?"

"Yes. She does not know precisely how long ago it was that she changed her gender. She had no windows in either location. Her only way of knowing the passage of time was by the outerwear that people wore. We thought we had a time frame worked out, until I understood that she thought our day was about eight hours long."

"Shift changes?"

"Exactly."

Sherlock watched the way his brother was stroking the tentacle in a soothing, reassuring manner, as one would stroke someone's hand. He noted how the creature had sidled closer to him and looped several more of its appendages around his chest and shoulders. _'Rescued',_ Mycroft had said - this, the brother who considered caring to be a disadvantage. He was doing his best to keep it hidden but Sherlock could read the affection in Mycroft's body language plainly. "How did you get her _here?_ "

"Three-ton van," Mycroft replied, "I had to drive it myself, of course - couldn't trust my driver with this." Sherlock's jaw fell open and Mycroft smirked faintly, "It took several Xanax to pull it off."

Sherlock stared at the creature that was gently ruffling his brother's hair. What about it had moved Mycroft so greatly? Driving gave Mycroft hellish anxiety attacks and he'd quit as soon as he could afford to hire - what had Baskerville been doing that Mycroft would risk driving **a van** of all things, to get it out of there? And it was intelligent... "She's beating you at Go."

"Yes, after destroying me at chess," Mycroft smiled fondly and turned away from a tentacle that had reached to stroke his cheek, "Communication is an issue. She cannot make our sounds nor can we make hers. I can recognise a few of her words and her name for me, of course, but I could not duplicate them. Her language, of course, is from a different world so there are very few common concepts, plus I suspect that her colour changes are part of her language although I am unsure in what way. She's better off, of course - having context for our words, she's picked up a fair bit of English and has made progress at reading, but she cannot speak it as she cannot make the sounds."

"A tablet? A computer with a touchscreen monitor?"

"She has one in her habitat," Mycroft smiled, turning slightly pink as he reached to catch and hold a tentacle that was snaking around his waist. "Her kind require a slightly richer content of atmospheric oxygen than Earth can provide. She's fine outside of her habitat but it's much the same as us at higher altitudes." He sighed. "She's still a captive. I wish it could be otherwise."

Sherlock nodded thoughtfully. "Text to speech software?"

"Slow but yes," Mycroft nodded, "Despite being captive for so many years, hardly anyone thought to interact with her on a sapient level, plus her vocabulary has been limited to items and events in the labs that were her environment. Since giving her the computer, however, she's become quite good with code and is working on an algorhythm to provide more direct translation of her sounds.."

"Do you want help with that?" Sherlock interrupted. Mycroft smiled faintly; that had been directed at the creature herself. He watched as Sherlock stepped a little closer, "Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft's brother." An appendage lifted and snaked out, hovering. Sherlock hesitated, not sure if this was an offer to shake hands or not. After glancing at Mycroft, he decided it was. 

The creature flashed colours a few times, chirruping, then chirruped a distinctive pattern. The tentacle snaked back and stroked Mycroft's cheek with another set of chirrups, then snaked out again to ruffle through Sherlock's hair, repeating the first set of chirrups. "Ah. Try to remember those sounds," Mycroft smiled, "She's chosen a name for you. Don't ask me what it means though; could be 'Fluffy', for all I know."

Sherlock smiled.. then frowned as the tentacle retreated, "Hang on, can I see that? No no I won't hurt you, I just want to look..." He took the appendage and brought it into the light to inspect the thread-thin line of a scar marring the peach skin. Then he tore off his own jacket and rolled up his sleeve to inspect his forearm. He moved his arm near the tentacle and compared the two. Mycroft came over to look. Sherlock looked up at the mass of the creature - he had no idea where her eyes were or even if she had eyes, or even if she had a head for that matter, but he did his best. "Was it a human who sutured this for you?" Another tentacle lifted and was brought down in a gesture clearly meant to imitate a nod. More appendages unfurled to display more of the thin scars, each showing stitch patterns identical to Sherlock's. "Was he involved in what was.." he didn't even finish the sentence before the appendage was waving back and forth in an emphatic negative. "But in healing you after..." Another nod.

"We'll talk about it later," Mycroft assured her, patting a tentacle and bringing it to his lips to kiss. His expression was as troubled as Sherlock's. 

"I'll tell Baskerville to take their glowing rabbits and sod off, of course," Sherlock said, "She might still be captive but at least she can see daylight here. And she seems to like you." He managed to keep the smirk off his face entirely as another blush lit Mycroft's cheeks.

"It will be easy enough to keep them off your back. They don't wish to attract my attention again," Mycroft said, "Involving you was rather foolish of them, really. Losing such a critical specimen, it's all I would need to shut them down." He looked up at the creature and smiled. "Keep me informed, will you?"

Sherlock nodded, "And I'll find out what he knows. If he's treated her, he may have information that could be important to her well-being. But now, I'll stop interrupting your date." He gave his brother a mischevious wink, grinning, then swirled out.

Mycroft silently cursed his ginger complexion. He peeled his hands away from his face and let his companion draw him into her embrace. Her colours were rippling in the patterns he'd concluded were laughter. "Seems you're not the only one who communicates by changing colours," he sighed, smiling, then laid his cheek briefly against a thick appendage. "Now," he said, looking up again, "Shall we return to our game?"


	2. The Healer's Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was that _really_ John's stitchwork on the alien's flesh? There's only one way to find out.

"That fellow's called again. He's rather insistent," John said as he poured out the tea. He glanced up at his flatmate, lying stretched out on the couch, eyes closed, fingers tented beneath his chin. "You're certain he's from Baskerville?"

"Yes."

"Well whatever it is they've lost, it has him pretty excited. It's not a rabbit this time though, is it."

"No."

"Are you taking the case?"

"No."

"Why not? The last time proved to be pretty interesting."

"I've already found it."

"You have?"

"Or rather, Mycroft has."

John paused. "Really? Now **that's** interesting."

"Not really. What's interesting is that I found what appears to be your suturework on it." 

John paused again, longer this time. Sherlock opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his flatmate. "I doubt it's mine," John said at last, "I'd never been to Baskerville before that time." 

"I matched it to my own examples," Sherlock replied, "Even Mycroft agreed."

"Must be a coincidence. Lots of doctors are good with sutures. It's not unique."

"Yours is."

"How would my sutures get onto one of Baskerville's experiments without my realising it? Sleep-stitching, I expect?"

Sherlock watched his flatmate carefully, "Mycroft said it was sold to Baskerville. It was previously held under a base called Torchwood-1." John had absolutely frozen, staring straight ahead. "So I showed her one of the pictures I have on my phone. She remembers you."

"The Durlan," John breathed, and finally turned to look at Sherlock, "They sent the Durlan to _**Baskerville?**_ Oh god...." He passed a hand over his eyes. 

"Is that what she's called? Mycroft calls her Scylla."

John shook his head, "They didn't know what its proper name is or what its species was called. They called it the Durlan because it resembled Durlans from the comic books, all tentacles and orange and it could change its shape a bit."

Sherlock sat up, "This pains you; why?"

John hesitated for a moment, "Well since we're talking about top-secret stuff anyways... I wasn't just regular army. There were a couple of missions I was attached to the Unified Intelligence Task Force." Sherlock's eyebrows shot up. "UNIT were at odds with Torchwood for a number of reasons, treatment of alien visitors being one of them. UNIT were trying to get custody of the Durlan from Torchwood and Torchwood weren't having it. I don't know all the details, I just happened to be nearby when there was an accident at Torchwood-1 and a lot of people and aliens were injured, the Durlan among them. Yes, I sutured its wounds."

"And did your usual excellent job," Sherlock assured him, "The scars have healed to threads, barely visible at all. It was luck that one caught my eye. But why does this upset you so much?"

"I said one of the points of disagreement was the treatment of alien visitors. Torchwood had a very bad reputation: Most aliens that fell into their hands... didn't fall out again. They did a lot of experiments at Torchwood-1. And they didn't... They didn't... recognise, that their prisoners were living beings, sentient... sapient beings." John was gripping the counter now with remembered anger, "When I was told to treat the Durlan, they didn't want to waste any anaesthetics on it. Told me 'it doesn't feel pain the way we do.'" He looked up at Sherlock, "Well they were right about that. It doesn't feel pain the way we do, it feels it _more._ It's very touch-oriented and it was completely touch-starved."

For some reason, Sherlock looked like he was barely suppressing a smirk. "I don't think that's an issue anymore," he said cryptically. 

"And you say Baskerville has it now? And wants it back? Where does Mycroft come in?"

"Baskerville _had_ her and won't be getting her back. Mycroft has her now."

John rubbed his forehead, "Oh **god**...! What is _he_ doing with her?"

Again the bitten-off smirk, barely controlled. "Made a pet of her, I believe. Plays games with her, he was losing at Go, last I saw. Apparently she beat him at chess." Mycroft having beat world chess champions, John was more than a little surprised at this. Sherlock grinned, "Teaching her English, teaching her to read and use a computer touchscreen, figuring out how to communicate with her. If you have any knowledge regarding her upkeep or medical care, I'm sure he would appreciate it."

"Very little, I'm afraid," John sighed, "We never even worked out what gender it was."

"From what I saw, he's treating her well. She seemed quite affectionate towards him and he was definitely protective of her."

John nodded, "Good, that's.. fine. That's all fine."


	3. There's An App For That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Watson is reunited with the strangest patient he'd ever expected to treat, in the last place he'd ever expected to find her.

"You're sure about this?"

"No, but he is."

John looked out at the rain running down the cab window. "It's just a bit surprising, that's all."

Sherlock didn't answer. He was texting. The cab pulled up and they got out and hurried up the steps. Sherlock pushed the door open without ringing the bell. John was about to say something, then realized that must have been what Sherlock was texting. 

Mycroft was waiting for them in his sitting room. John glanced around, taking in the posh decor and the large chess sculpture. And the quiet. "Staff not in today?"

"I gave them the day off," Mycroft said mildly. 

There was a faint tang of lemons in the air, almost like lemon polish or lemon candy. The smell tugged at John's memory. He joined the brothers, listening as Mycroft handed over the fake IDs and passes and explained what was needed. Then a soft chirrup made him look around.

Mycroft looked up with such a soft smile, John felt like rubbing his eyes in disbelief. "Ah," he said, "I believe you know Scylla?"

"I'm sorry, who? - oh my god!" Three pale peach appendages sneaked around a corner. John gaped for a moment then felt the wide smile spreading over his face, "Oh my god, yes I do!" 

The bulk of the creature rippled forward, carried on its multitude of tentacles. John crossed the floor, hands held out, looking like he was greeting a long-lost friend. He took the tentacles without hesitation and the creature chirred, its colours flashing and rippling like a cephalopod's. "Hello!!" he said, "How are you? It's been a while, eh?" The creature chirruped again then abruptly wrapped several appendages around him and squeezed gently, thrumming and flashing. "Awwwww," John cooed, trying to return the hug with limited success.

The creature paused then.. "Yes. I believe it has been not quite twenty years."

John **blinked** at the electronic voice and stared. Then he turned to stare at Mycroft, who was grinning. "She has an iPad," he explained, "With a text-to-voice app."

"Talking to your pet tentacle monster, there's an app for that," Sherlock snickered. Mycroft shot him a nasty look.

Thankfully, John had turned back to the creature. "Yes, it was the late 80s, wasn't it? And you still remember me? After all that time?"

"Yes. You talked to me. I did not forget."

"And now Mycroft's taking care of you. Well you look in better health than when I last saw you," John chuckled, then his eyes grew serious, "How are you? Really?"

"I am content," the creature replied via its touchpad, "I am comfortable and do not hurt. I do not hunger or thirst. Experiments do not happen." 

"I'm sorry," John said softly. 

"I am content," the creature repeated, snaking a tentacle into his hair and down his cheek, then patted him on the shoulder. 

"I would, however, appreciate any medical advice you might have," Mycroft interrupted. 

John looked up at him and shook his head, "Not much of that, I'm afraid, There wasn't a lot to go on. It needs.."

"She," Mycroft corrected, "She changed to female a few years ago. She was male when you met her."

John blinked. Twice. "...Wow. Um.. okay," he cleared his throat, "Well um.. She... needs extra oxygen.."

"Noted that. I have arrangements to keep her habitat supplied."

"And considerably more anesthetic than we would. She's much more sensitive to touch and pain than we are and I suspect her kind are very tactile." John paused for a moment before continuing, "Aspirin and NSAIDs are toxic to her but she's alright with acetominophen. If she needs anything stronger, call me. Don't give her oregano, it acts like amphetamine although it was easier for her to get off of. Ethanol acts like a mild stimulant, like us with caffiene, and it doesn't seem to intoxicate her. A bit of dark chocolate seemed to act like a multi-vitamin for her but she's always a bit malnourished, there are nutrients she needs that we just can't get here. As far as I know, anyway, which isn't much."

Mycroft turned to glare at the creature, "You could have mentioned about the oregano."

The creature gave the equivalent of a shrug, "It was just one souvlaki."

"Dealing with one addict is enough."

"So much for the kitchen herbs planter," Sherlock chuckled, giving the creature a cheeky grin. Her colours rippled with laughter.

They finished their business and John gave the creature a final hug, then grinned as she looped a few appendages around Mycroft and waved goodbye. 

As they walked back out into the rain, towards the waiting cab, John cleared his throat and asked, "Alright, what was all that about?" Sherlock grinned at him. "What? ...Oh. ... _Really?_ "

"Don't worry, I don't tease him about it in public."

John shook his head, "Could have lived without that mental image."

"So could I."


End file.
